Anne of Avonlea
this will get out everywhere and I shall be ashamed to show my face.
No, we must just wait until the Copp girls come home and bind them to
secrecy. They’ll know where the axe is and get me out. I’m not
uncomfortable, as long as I keep perfectly still . . . not
uncomfortable in _body_ I mean. I wonder what the Copp girls value this
house at. I shall have to pay for the damage I’ve done, but I wouldn’t
mind that if I were only sure they would understand my motive in
peeping in at their pantry window. My sole comfort is that the platter
is just the kind I want and if Miss Copp will only sell it to me I
shall be resigned to what has happened.”
“What if the Copp girls don’t come home until after night . . . or till
tomorrow?” suggested Diana.
“If they’re not back by sunset you’ll have to go for other assistance,
I suppose,” said Anne reluctantly, “but you mustn’t go until you really
have to. Oh dear, this is a dreadful predicament. I wouldn’t mind my
misfortunes so much if they were romantic, as Mrs. Morgan’s heroines’
always are, but they are always just simply ridiculous. Fancy what the
Copp girls will think when they drive into their yard and see a girl’s
head and shoulders sticking out of the roof of one of their outhouses.
Listen . . . is that a wagon? No, Diana, I believe it is thunder.”
Thunder it was undoubtedly, and Diana, having made a hasty pilgrimage
around the house, returned to announce that a very black cloud was
rising rapidly in the northwest.
“I believe we’re going to have a heavy thunder-shower,” she exclaimed
in dismay, “Oh, Anne, what will we do?”
“We must prepare for it,” said Anne tranquilly. A thunderstorm seemed a
trifle in comparison with what had already happened. “You’d better
drive the horse and buggy into that open shed. Fortunately my parasol
is in the buggy. Here . . . take my hat with you. Marilla told me I was
a goose to put on my best hat to come to the Tory Road and she was
right, as she always is.”
Diana untied the pony and drove into the shed, just as the first heavy
drops of rain fell. There she sat and watched the resulting downpour,
which was so thick and heavy that she could hardly see Anne through it,
holding the parasol bravely over her bare head. There was not a great
deal of thunder, but for the best part of an hour the rain came merrily
down. Occasionally Anne slanted back her parasol and waved an
encouraging hand to her friend; But conversation at that distance was
quite out of the question. Finally the rain ceased, the sun came out,
and Diana ventured across the puddles of the yard.
“Did you get very wet?” she asked anxiously.
“Oh, no,” returned Anne cheerfully. “My head and shoulders are quite
dry and my skirt is only a little damp where the rain beat through the
laths. Don’t pity me, Diana, for I haven’t minded it at all. I kept
thinking how much good the rain will do and how glad my garden must be
for it, and imagining what the flowers and buds would think when the
drops began to fall. I imagined out a most interesting dialogue between
the asters and the sweet peas and the wild canaries in the lilac bush
and the guardian spirit of the garden. When I go home I mean to write
it down. I wish I had a pencil and paper to do it now, because I
daresay I’ll forget the best parts before I reach home.”
Diana the faithful had a pencil and discovered a sheet of wrapping
paper in the box of the buggy. Anne folded up her dripping parasol, put
on her hat, spread the wrapping paper on a shingle Diana handed up, and
wrote out her garden idyl under conditions that could hardly be
considered as favorable to literature. Nevertheless, the result was
quite pretty, and Diana was “enraptured” when Anne read it to her.
“Oh, Anne, it’s sweet . . . just sweet. _Do_ send it to the _Canadian
Woman_.”
Anne shook her head.
“Oh, no, it wouldn’t be suitable at all. There is no _plot_ in it, you
see. It’s just a string of fancies. I like writing such things, but of
course nothing of the sort would ever do for publication, for editors
insist on plots, so Priscilla says. Oh, there’s Miss Sarah Copp now.
_Please_, Diana, go and explain.”
Miss Sarah Copp was a small person, garbed in shabby black, with a hat
chosen less for vain adornment than for qualities that would wear well.
She looked as amazed as might be expected on seeing the curious tableau
in her yard, but when she heard Diana’s explanation she was all
sympathy. She hurriedly unlocked the back door, produced the axe, and
with a few skillfull blows set Anne free. The latter, somewhat tired
and stiff, ducked down into the interior of her prison and thankfully
emerged into liberty once more.
“Miss Copp,” she said earnestly. “I assure you I looked into your
pantry window _only_ to discover if you had a willow-ware platter. I
didn’t see anything else—I didn’t _look_ for anything else.”
“Bless you, that’s all right,” said Miss Sarah amiably. “You needn’t
worry—there’s no harm done. Thank goodness, we Copps keep our pantries
presentable at all times and don’t care who sees into them. As for that
old duckhouse, I’m glad it’s smashed, for maybe now Martha will agree
to having it taken down. She never would before for fear it might come
in handy sometime and I’ve had to whitewash it every spring. But you
might as well argue with a post as with Martha. She went to town
today—I drove her to the station. And you want to buy my platter. Well,
what will you give for it?”
“Twenty dollars,” said Anne, who was never meant to match business wits
with a Copp, or she would not have offered her price at the start.
“Well, I’ll see,” said Miss Sarah cautiously. “That platter is mine
fortunately, or I’d never dare to sell it when Martha wasn’t here. As
it is, I daresay she’ll raise a fuss. Martha’s the boss of this
establishment I can tell you. I’m getting awful tired of living under
another woman’s thumb. But come in, come in. You must be real tired and
hungry. I’ll do the best I can for you in the way of tea but I warn you
not to expect anything but bread and butter and some cowcumbers. Martha
locked up all the cake and cheese and preserves afore she went. She
always does, because she says I’m too extravagant with them if company
comes.”
The girls were hungry enough to do justice to any fare, and they
enjoyed Miss Sarah’s excellent bread and butter and “cowcumbers”
thoroughly. When the meal was over Miss Sarah said,
“I don’t know as I mind selling the platter. But it’s worth twenty-five
dollars. It’s a very old platter.”
Diana gave Anne’s foot a gentle kick under the table, meaning, “Don’t
agree—she’ll let it go for twenty if you hold out.” But Anne was not
minded to take any chances in regard to that precious platter. She
promptly agreed to give twenty-five and Miss Sarah looked as if she
felt sorry she hadn’t asked for thirty.
“Well, I guess you may have it. I want all the money I can scare up
just now. The fact is—” Miss Sarah threw up her head importantly, with
a proud flush on her thin cheeks—“I’m going to be married—to Luther
Wallace. He wanted me twenty years ago. I liked him real well but he
was poor then and father packed him off. I s’pose I shouldn’t have let
him go so meek but I was timid and frightened of father. Besides, I
didn’t know men were so skurse.”
When the girls were safely away, Diana driving and Anne holding the
coveted platter carefully on her lap, the green, rain-freshened
solitudes of the Tory Road were enlivened by ripples of girlish
laughter.
“I’ll amuse your Aunt Josephine with the ‘strange eventful history’ of
this afternoon when I go to town tomorrow. We’ve had a rather trying
time but it’s over now. I’ve got the platter, and that rain has laid
the dust beautifully. So ‘all’s well that ends well.’”
“We’re not home yet,” said Diana rather pessimistically, “and there’s
no telling what may happen before we are. You’re such a girl to have
adventures, Anne.”
“Having adventures comes natural to some people,” said Anne serenely.
“You just have a gift for them or you haven’t.”
XIX
Just a Happy Day
“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and
sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or
wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little
pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a
string.”
Life at Green Gables was full of just such days, for Anne’s adventures
and misadventures, like those of other people, did not all happen at
once, but were sprinkled over the year, with long stretches of
harmless, happy days between, filled with work and dreams and laughter
and lessons. Such a day came late in August. In the forenoon Anne and
Diana rowed the delighted twins down the pond to the sandshore to pick
“sweet grass” and paddle in the surf, over which the wind was harping
an old lyric learned when the world was young.
In the afternoon Anne walked down to the old Irving place to see Paul.
She found him stretched out on the grassy bank beside the thick fir
grove that sheltered the house on the north, absorbed in a book of
fairy tales. He sprang up radiantly at sight of her.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come, teacher,” he said eagerly, “because
Grandma’s away. You’ll stay and have tea with me, won’t you? It’s so
lonesome to have tea all by oneself. _You_ know, teacher. I’ve had
serious thoughts of asking Young Mary Joe to sit down and eat her tea
with me, but I expect Grandma wouldn’t approve. She says the French
have to be kept in their place. And anyhow, it’s difficult to talk with
Young Mary Joe. She just laughs and says, ‘Well, yous do beat all de
kids I ever knowed.’ That isn’t my idea of conversation.”
“Of course I’ll stay to tea,” said Anne gaily. “I was dying to be
asked. My mouth has been watering for some more of your grandma’s
delicious shortbread ever since I had tea here before.”
Paul looked very sober.
“If it depended on me, teacher,” he said, standing before Anne with his
hands in his pockets and his beautiful little face shadowed with sudden
care, “You should have shortbread with a right good will. But it
depends on Mary Joe. I heard Grandma tell her before she left that she
wasn’t to give me any shortcake because it was too rich for little
boys’ stomachs. But maybe Mary Joe will cut some for you if I promise I
won’t eat any. Let us hope for the best.”
“Yes, let us,” agreed Anne, whom this cheerful philosophy suited
exactly, “and if Mary Joe proves hard-hearted and won’t give me any
shortbread it doesn’t matter in the least, so you are not to worry over
that.”
“You’re sure you won’t mind if she doesn’t?” said Paul anxiously.
“Perfectly sure, dear heart.”
“Then I won’t worry,” said Paul, with a long breath of relief,
“especially as I really think Mary Joe will listen to reason. She’s not
a naturally unreasonable person, but she has learned by experience that
it doesn’t do to disobey Grandma’s orders. Grandma is an excellent
woman but people must do as she tells them. She was very much pleased
with me this morning because I managed at last to eat all my plateful
of porridge. It was a great effort but I succeeded. Grandma says she
thinks she’ll make a man of me yet. But, teacher, I want to ask you a
very important question. You will answer it truthfully, won’t you?”
“I’ll try,” promised Anne.
“Do you think I’m wrong in my upper story?” asked Paul, as if his very
existence depended on her reply.
“Goodness, no, Paul,” exclaimed Anne in amazement. “Certainly you’re
not. What put such an idea into your head?”
“Mary Joe . . . but she didn’t know I heard her. Mrs. Peter Sloane’s
hired girl, Veronica, came to see Mary Joe last evening and I heard
them talking in the kitchen as I was going through the hall. I heard